A quick look round

Passing back through the living room and hall, I went into the downstairs bedroom. It was difficult to decide what had been done to the walls there. They appeared to be painted plaster, but surely nobody could have lived with walls that bright shade of blue? To make matters worse, the radiators and pipes, all of which were surface mounted, were a particularly sickly pink. Perhaps Monsieur Erlanger's ancient mother who had previously lived here had been driven mad by the colour scheme and ended her days in the local asylum. The door was painted almost the same shade of grey as the carpet, although I was certain that this latter had at one time been a little more colourful (I had horrible visions of emerald green to clash with the walls and radiators). Quite why the radiators had been wrapped in sheets of clear plastic was something I just couldn't fathom.

I couldn't recall the stairs seeming quite as questionable as they now were, but as I climbed them I decided they were safe enough and just needed a little touching up here and there. The floor of the enormous upstairs bedroom, all sixteen feet by twenty feet of it, was covered in vinyl flooring and showed a pale neutral colour through the dust. The walls had been painted a mid-green, with the radiator and pipework slightly darker. Although the wooden surround to the fireplace was still there, the hearth itself had been blocked up by more tongue-and-groove timber.

Downstairs again, I checked the shower room. Small but basically functional, I thought. Then I noticed a slight oddity. There was no bolt on the inside, but there was one on the outside of the door. Yes, really! "Oh, dear! What can the matter be, Mrs S is locked in the lavatory." Perhaps this was where the song originated?